Funny, I was about to type that I post mostly about Nia since I am primarily focused on teaching Nia, but right now I looked at my Categories and I have 111 post under Nia and 111 post under Misc. Funny. This post will fall under Misc. This post is about some of the search terms I see. Sometimes I see people using a question as a search term. I always wish I could contact that person via e-mail to answer their question. I have thought about posting replies, but I haven’t done that. I am often surprised and sometimes shocked at some of the things people search for. I am laughing right now at the most popular search term since I have been blogging. It is funny because WHO thinks of these things? Why would anyone actually be searching for it? I am actually very happy — now that I think about it — that I posted about it because apparently people want to know. Do you? Have you ever wondered about a puppy that is purple? Seriously “purple puppy” is the biggest search on my blog. Hilarious, don’t you think?
It is especially funny since I just happened upon the purple puppy and her pink sister and I thought it was so oddly cute that I decided to post about it Makes me laugh that other people are curious about purple puppies. Makes me wonder why people are curious about purple puppies.
The next biggest search term is relevé. See, that makes sense to me. I under stand people wanting to know what it is or how to do it. Or just wanting more information about it. There are people who dance that might have heard that term but not being a ballerina, might not know what it is. Or someone wanting to be a ballerina might want some hints and tricks. That one makes sense to me.
The next one is Voss Water. I am somewhat surprised that Voss water isn’t higher on the list. Seems as if for a long time I had been seeing that come up again and again and again. But it is number three.
Number four is Carlos AyaRosas. That is nice. Carlos is the co-creator of Nia. His name was Carlos Rosas, but near the end of his career with Nia he changed it to Carlos AyaRosas. I love that people are searching for information on him. I imagine they are people who love Nia and they are wondering where he is and how he is doing. I believe he is in Texas with his new wife. And I have faith they are doing wonderfully.
I am not sure about you, but I was surprised by number five. Are you ready? Purple puppies. Plural. So not only do people search for purple puppY, they search for purple puppIES. I wonder what they want to know? I wonder if my post gives them any information they want to know. As I scroll through the entire list of search terms I see even more searches for the purple puppies just phrased differently.
The next popular search is optical illusion. That one is big. I see that one comes up a lot with the plural version search and all of the elements of the optical illusion; horses, babies, Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein. Funny. That post gets a lot of hits. I can understand that, who doesn’t love an optical illusion. They are so cool. Tricks of the eyes and brain.
Well, I was just looking at the search terms and they often make me laugh, although today there were not any funny searches, but I think the next time there are I will write a post. Maybe you can help me figure out what some of them mean. Or maybe we can just have a chuckle. I am still laughing about the purple puppies.
This is not something new to you, I am certain. Sometimes things are not what they seem. I get contacted almost every day by people wanting to help me advertise Nia and my business. I am always interested because Nia is not yet a household name. Nia is not yet as big as Zumba. More often than not, I listen to what the caller has to say. I was recently disappointed after I received a call from a rather large company. The woman identified herself as a person working for this large company. She said that they were contacting people in my industry who might be interested in being on this company’s list of preferred service providers. Since I had never had any dealings with this HUGE company, when she asked if she could send me some information regarding being on this preferred list I said yes. I was curious as to how I could be a preferred service provider when I had never worked with this company or for this company. Well, I got my answer rather quickly as this person did as she said. She sent me an e-mail with the information within minutes of talking to me. It seems that all one has to do to be included on this HUGE company’s preferred service provider list is pay, at the bottom of the scale, $395.00 for an ad. Then — boom! — you are a preferred service provider.
I was disappointed, not that I wouldn’t be on the list, but I was disappointed about the list. This list of preferred service providers is provided to the employees of this company. If I were an employee of this to-remain-nameless-HUGE-technological-company, I would expect them to be preferring people that they have had some experience with. I would think that, if I was employed by this company that they would be recommending people to me for some other reason then the company, the service provider, paid them. The pricing started at $395.00 and went to $995.00, with something else (I am not certain what type of ad) for $100 each.
In addition to payment to be preferred the item that was to be advertised on this “preferred service provider list” was DISCOUNTED services. So it was a preferred service provider list that offers discounts to the employees. I honestly didn’t know that is how it worked. I thought the preferred service provider list was more than just advertising.
Also, I would like to point out that while the caller said she worked for the company, she meant as a hired outside marketing company. So . . . not only does this company have a preferred list of providers that are nothing more than people who pay for adverting in a preferred magazine of discounts for the employees, but the company doesn’t even do its own selling of ads in this “prefered service vendor list”. So not only are the service vendors not actually preferred they aren’t even known to the company whose list they are on.
Bummer. Just another lesson in some things not actually being what they seem. If you are one that works for a company that has a preferred service provider list you might want to find out HOW they get to be “preferred”. I guess I just thought of preferred as one having been chosen over another, not just having paid to be so.
There is a song about saving time in a bottle. If we could bottle time and take it out when we needed it that would be a wonderful thing. But then again, maybe just learning to manage our time would be a wonderful thing. I am one that could use to learn a few things about time management. Although as I look around me I see little things transpiring that I can use as time-helpers. One thing is the new Facebook. I believe that I get caught up in reading and commenting on Facebook a lot, but with this new change I find myself signing on then signing off quickly instead of staying on to look around. So that is a little “time-helper” for me. The new format is helping me by making me want to spend less time on it. Spending a little less time on Facebook is one thing that would allow me more time. For some they pack their schedules so tight they don’t have breathing room. There is no time to just “BE”. No time to just enjoy the moment. No time to decompress and de-stress. It is as if pressure is on all the time.
A Nia student of mine and I were talking about having breathing room. She is one of those people who packs her schedule really tight. She was sharing with me that she had wanted to go to a Nia event very badly but trying to squeeze it into her schedule was causing a lot of stress. Even though the event was something she really wanted to do the idea of trying to fit it in a jammed packed schedule was causing stress. Nia is joyful and is the opposite of stress. The fact that trying to fit this Nia class into her schedule was causing her stress and was negating the joy. Reluctantly she decided not to go, she told me that with releasing that commitment she had a great feeling of relief. She no longer had to figure out driving time, class time, and scheduling all her other work around that. As much as she missed not going to the Nia class it was necessary to take it off of her schedule in order to allow her less stress. And it worked. The moment she decided to not go, there was a release of pressure.
In our society we are programmed to go-go-go and do-do-do. Some people don’t say no to things because “they could squeeze it in between this and that”. People sometimes feel it is wrong or bad to say no. If they have a spare hour they feel it would be wrong to not accept the invitation or the task. For some having nothing to do for an afternoon is unheard of and even more so . . . . a waste of time. And they have no time to just be. Some can’t enjoy the moment. They aren’t taking the time to decompress and de-stress. They live under constant pressure.
At my next Nia class my student shared with me that after our conversation she had went home looked at her calendar and decided a few things needed to be crossed off the schedule so she could just be. She wanted to bring the sensation and the experience of just having time to relax into her everyday life. She had said that she was able to accomplish that on vacation but she wanted to work on having more time in her life. She was so excited to have done this and that our conversation had reminded her of the importance of saying, “No.” That it is ok to say no and actually have nothing to do. It is ok to say no and to keep that time free to be.
Then a few days later she sent me an e-mail she had received with this quote from Martha Beck.
We laughed at how the quote came at such a perfect time. We had been talking about “emptying our time” and then bam . . . there is it another reminder, or confirmation in fact, of exactly what we had been talking about.
Amazing how sometimes things in life just keep telling us the same thing over and over. Sometimes it is when we most need it to. I know that I am not always good at recognizing it. I know I could adjust my time a bit. I feel I have a good amount of time to be, but there could easily be some modifications in my time management to make things less stressful. What about you? Are there things you could say no to? Are there things you could adjust? Do you have “empty time” in which you can just be/de-stress/decompress/reflect? If you feel you have a lot of stress maybe you could start with little increments and see how that feels and then go from there. You might be surprised how great it feels to relieve some of that pressure and give yourself some time.
Nia is a cardio dance workout (it is really much more, but on the surface, that is what I call it). As with many cardio workouts done to music there are a lot of moves. Since Nia is basically a dance workout there are a lot of common dance steps and movements that many of us were taught in different forms of dance. Some are even from different forms of martial arts or other exercise classes and modalities. Nia has a base of 52 moves. We call them the 52 Nia Moves. What Nia has done is put them into categories to allow you to see what areas of the body are most associated with the move. One of the most common moves we use in Nia classes is the Open Stance. I have been familiar with the open stance for as long as I can remember. I took ballet and tap when I was young. I have done Jazzercise and other types of dance exercise classes. Many of these types of things have an open stance. From the first time I can remember being taught the open stance it was taught as “feet hip width apart”. Some of you might be familiar with that. Well, I don’t know if other modalities meant it actually that way or if I had been misled, but in Nia the open stance is actually hip JOINT width apart.
So you might be saying, “What?” Well, go ahead, if you can . . . . stand up and into open stance. I’m going to guess most of you don’t have a mirror in front of you . . . so look at your feet. What do you see? A somewhat wide stance? Are your feet hip WIDTH apart? Probably, because I believe that is the common instruction for “open stance”. Stay there. Touch your hips and thighs. Sense how that stance feels. Make note of the sensation of your leg muscles. Picture your leg bones. Are they at a slight angle?
Now bring your feet closer together. Picture your stance being hip JOINT width apart. Most of us have hips that are larger than where our legs meet our hip socket. Try this: Imagine someone gently lifting you off of your feet by you head, imagine your legs are just hanging down from your hip JOINTS. Then the huge hand that lifted you sets you gently down. Your legs exactly in the same position as when you were hanging. Your leg bones come straight out from your hip joints. That is what Nia open stance is.
For me, it is much more narrow than I was taught open stance was.
My pictures are showing the difference between what I thought was open (the first one) and what I now think of as open (the second one). I stood on the rug so the pattern would help show the difference. Please keep in mind that everyone, everyBODY is different so the width of your feet will differ from mine, but if you keep in mind that open is not really hip WIDTH apart, but hip JOINT width apart then you too, might have an adjustment in your “open stance”.
Well, did you? Were you taught open is hip width apart? If you stand hip width apart is there a noticeable difference when you stand hip JOINT width apart?
After I taught my NiaClass in Willow Glen I had some shopping to do. After shopping I rushed home because I was going to meet a friend in the afternoon back the way of my class, but I thought would shower so as not to offend her. It was pretty warm here. As is normal for a hot day, the late afternoon early evening is the hottest. So as I was driving home from my visit I was not looking forward to cooking dinner. I had chicken thawed in the fridge, but what else to cook? I ended up visiting longer than I had planned and getting stuck in traffic on the way home so I didn’t want to stop to get anything to add to dinner because it was already late. All the way home I was wondering what to cook. When I got home it was really hot. I thought it would be best not to turn on the oven or the stove. I had an idea that maybe using my electric skillet would be cooler. I do believe it was. Although this is a common dish cooked in a crock pot or the oven. When you have limited ingredients sometimes dinner is really easy. I have found that with limited ingredients I come up with come pretty good meals. Some end up being regularly cooked meals.
Ingredients:
-A little over a cup of rice
-32 oz broth
-1/2 cup of sherry
-1 tablespoon of worchestire sauce
-1/2 tablespoon soy sauce
-1 tablespoon marjoram
-1/2 tablespoon powdered garlic
-two large chicken breast (skinless, boneless)
-bag of green beans
-salt and pepper to taste**
I put the rice in the skillet with about half of the broth and turn the skillet on to its highest setting. I started to cut up the chicken into bite size pieces. When most of the broth boiled off, I added the rest of the broth, the sherry, the worchestire sauce, the soy sauce and stirred, then I added the marjoram. I turned the heat down to the lowest setting. I finished cutting up the chicken, then put it in with the rice I sprinkled the garlic on the chicken with some salt. I turned it to the middle setting. I let the chicken cook until it was almost done, then I added the green beans. I stirred them into the dish and let it cook until they were done.
If you know me, you know I don’t like pepper — at all. But my friend gave me some smoked pepper, which seems very different than regular black pepper. It helped finish the dish off perfectly! I brought the grinder to the table though so we could pepper our food separately. My husband loves pepper.
I wasn’t planning on posting about this so I wasn’t keeping track of the time, but I think it all took about 30 to 40 minutes. That is what I will plan on in the future, but I will keep an eye on it to see. I am looking forward to using different veggies. Frozen green beans is all that I had.
The last time I cooked an all in one dish I used the oven and I used brown rice and canned soup. The rice was a bit crunchy still but I didn’t want to cook it longer because the chicken was done. So that is why with this one I started the rice first, although this time I used white rice and it could have been less done.
I am working my way away from using canned soup so that is why I used broth and it came out great. With the oven cooked dish I used broccoli. I am looking forward to trying different veggies in the skillet.
I had forgotten about the electric skillet even though my parents use theirs all the time. I am glad it was hot and I was at a loss of how to cook dinner because now I am going to start using my electric skillet more often.
Do you have an electric skillet? If you do, what do you cook in it? Do you have any favorite one pot recipes?
**09/10/11 — This actually made quite so we ate it a second night. On the third night it seemed as if all that was left was rice and green beans so I sauteed some baby bok choy and a can of chicken then put the left over rice and green beans in the pan and heated it up. Wow! I think I am a fan of baby bok choy!!!
09/12/11 — I didn’t take a picture while I was cooking it because I didn’t think of posting about it. So the next night when we were having it for dinner I decided to at least take a picture of the food and the electric skillet, even though the food is on my dinner plate. 🙂
Nia’s training, the Nia Intensives are something that anyone can take. If you are not planning on teaching you can still attend the intensives. Nia is a practice that can be applied to life without ever having to teach it. Nia has several different ways of helping with continued education both for the livelihood member and for teachers. First for a person that is planning on teaching, #12 of the White Belt principles is continued education. There are instructions and ideas on how to learn Nia routines.
There are three stages to learning a routine. When I took my White Belt Carlos was very adamant about not skipping any of these steps. I am glad I have decided to post this because I am being reminded that there are a few steps in each stage that I could be better about doing. In the first stage we are reminded to just simply do the DVD. With each routine we have a DVD and we are instructed to just do it. Do it as if we are taking a Nia class. Do it as you would do any exercise DVD. Move, listen, and enjoy the workout. This is obviously one step that can be done several times.
Another step is to listen to the music all the time. Listen and allow it to seep into the body. Then we are encouraged to FreeDance to the music. We are instructed to dance six of the eight stages. Keep in mind this can be over the course of days or weeks, whatever it takes. Then they advise us to just WATCH the DVD without working out to it. The last step in Stage 1 is to do the bars.
Stage 2 is where we watch the DVD and note the separate portions of the body’s choreography. Three separate steps, first we watch and note the legs, then the core, then the arms.
Stage 3 of learning a Nia Routine is where we start to go deeper into the routine by starting to have an awareness of the musical cues that signal a change in movement. By now, with having danced the routine to the Nia DVD as a student, listened to the music, mapped out the music, noted the choreography, and become aware of the sounds that tell us when there is a movement change coming we are ready to pretend. We call that teaching or dancing with your bears. It is the example used when you are at a point in the learning process where you are ready to do the workout and pretend there are students. During my Nia White Belt Intensive Carlos said something like set up stuff bears or spoons or pillows, just set up something so you can have a focus. I think the bear scenario is used in all intensives because we all call it “teaching/dancing with your bears”. Step 3 of stage 3 is to even go deeper into the music. It is amazing how the music will sound different after you have taught your bears. I might realize I need to pick a different music cue because while I am moving the one I originally chose gets lost, or I hear a better one. Sometimes I stop and don’t move at all to make sure I am hearing the music correctly. More advice includes being the student, doing the routine again, but as the student and not the teacher and getting more technical with the moves. Once you have the basic choreography down it is time to get technical and make certain you have all the levels of intensity familiarized in your body. The Nia Routine training DVD also has many other tools on it to help us learn the routine. They have a portion where they talk about the energy that goes with each move and more about the technical aspect of each move. One of the last steps is the recommendation to dance the routine with a different focus. That is a great way to learn a routine because it becomes practically brand new and you discover so much. The last stage encourages us to change the music. Because we have mapped out music and know the count of it we can pick songs that match and put the choreography to different music.
In addition to these great stages and steps they have mapped out for us to assist us in learning a routine, Nia’s continue education includes articles and telecourses. They also film classes that they hold at Nia HQ so that people can watch and learn about more ideas that delve into Nia. In 2010 the course of study was the 13 Nia White Belt Principles. The course of study for 2011 is “Becoming A Sensation Scientist”, learning about senses of the body. I am not sure of what the course of study’s name is for 2012, but it looks as if it has to do with the body itself with title such as, “Awareness of Muscles” and “Awareness of Ligaments and Tendons.” So this is part of what I mean when I say Nia is so much more than a workout.
YES, Nia is a cardio dance workout where you can go to a class and move your body to music get sweaty and get exercise for your body. But if you want, it can be a practice, where you learn more about your body. Even if you are not a teacher or a livelihood member Nia does a monthly telecourse call where everyBODY can listen, I would like to encourage you to check it out. Go to the main website for Nia and see all the education they have to offer. You might be just amazed as I always am.
I have stated before that I joined the world of social media to promote my Nia business. Nia has been around for almost 30 years, but not a lot of people know about it. It did not have the marketing push of Zumba. Nia is a fitness/wellness practice that includes a cardio dance workout. I grudgingly joined FaceBook, Twitter, Wellsphere, Merchant Circle, Yelp, Youtube, and many more to share things about health and wellness, and yes primarily Nia. What happened, of course, was I found friends on FB both new and ones I had lost touch with. I made friends through my blog and other people’s blogs. I connected with many people on Twitter. With all of these real friend connections I often get distracted with conversations on these social media sites. But then again, I don’t really think of them as distractions because these are my friends now. They might be people I may never meet face-to-face, but I care about them and — lucky me — they care about me. But I do still have to try to learn things. Today I listened to a Guinness World Record-breaking webinar hosted by HubSpot and presented by Dan Zarrella . It was really interesting. He shared how a lot of things you might hear are myths.
The presentation was labelled “The Science of Social Media”. I guess the “science” came in because Mr. Zarrella compiled a bunch of figures from research. I am gonna share some of the things he stated that I found interesting. Ok – really I am stating interesting facts off the slides because he talked so fast I missed a lot of what he said. AND they had an earthquake in Virgina before the webinar and it was felt where the presentation was taking place. They said the audio was having issues because of the earthquake. But when Mr. Z slowed down, it was fine.
He had a lot of charts graphs and all types of things explaining how he came to these conclusions and these were the times when his rate of speech doubled so I think he was very excited about how he came up with this info but it also made it very hard to understand. But . . . this provides a great opportunity for me to let you know that Hubspot is going to post the webinar so you can listen to it yourself. I am just pointing out some highlights and what I got out of it. It is always better to listen to the source when you have the opportunity.
Here are three myths:
– Engaging in the conversation is the most important thing.
From what I understood, he was saying this is not true IF you were trying to get huge exposure. We are all on social networks for our own reasons. So this MIGHT be a true fact for you, but in Mr. Z’s context he was saying it is NOT the most important thing when you are trying to get exposure.
– Don’t call yourself a guru.
His research showed people calling themselves gurus had HUGE followings. So as long as you follow up your “guru” claim with good/valuable info you can call yourself that.
– Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays are bad days to publish.
He said he found this not to be true. He explained people can spend much more time on things (posts, links, e-mail, etc) because there is less traffic on those days. So it sounds as if so many people believe this to be true so they don’t publish on those day which actually makes it false.
Additional points:
– Highly followed accounts tweet a lot of links. Well, for me as a follower, if that is all that I see in a twitter stream I usually don’t bother following. So, as I said, we all use social media for our own purposes so not all of his information applies to everyone. He was sharing what his research showed by the numbers he studied.
– Don’t tweet “over” yourself.
If you tweet out a link or information, let it set a bit. Give people time to see it before you tweet more information. Some of this I think you just learn as you go.
– Don’t talk about yourself too much and – Positive tweets and posts are what people want to read
These two points I thought were funny because I think of them as obvious as the sky. But maybe it was stated for people living under a rock. And there is a fine line, which was not actually addressed. I think the fine line would be more educational. I mean, people DO want to hear about you as a person, but how much is the question. And people also don’t care to read false positives. I mean life does have some negative aspects and sometimes it is ok to share them. Again, the question is: how much?
– Write to the 5th grade level.
Regardless of what your audience’s education level may be this is a widely used level.
– Asking for a retweet works.
He said when you ask nicely for followers to retweet or share they do.
These are highlights of what I found most interesting. There was a lot of information to support the busting of each myth, but that information you can hear when you listen to the webinar yourself. You’ll will want to, if you have time and you are interested in learning more about social media. HubSpot is a great tool for learning about social media. They often have free webinars and downloads. You might want to visit their site to see all they have to offer. Thanks again, HubSpot and Mr. Dan Zarrella, as always I received some great info from you!
I have posted before about what wonderful friends and Nia students I have. I have also posted about bell peppers. My love for both should be pretty well-known. 🙂 I consider my friends and the people who allow me to hold my Nia classes one of my most precious blessings. Between the group of them I have supporters, counselors, advisors, therapists, doctors, sounding boards, teachers, chefs, cooks, cheer leaders, advocates, lunch dates, chauffeurs, bakers, gardeners, and the list goes on and on. And bell peppers . . .well, with them there are endless snacks, meals, and yumminess.
But, as you are probably aware, not everyone likes bells peppers. You could be among the group of people who do not. You might be one of the people who like the red, but not the green or like the yellow but not the red. There are a lot of combinations in that group. Also, as you may know a bell pepper, when an ingredient in a cooked dish, tends to permeate the entire dish. There really is no “picking” them out if you don’t like the flavor. If you don’t like the flavor then you probably just avoid the dish entirely. While the flavors of the colors do vary, no matter what color is used the flavor seeps into the entire dish. I am not certain if this applies to raw foods, as in a salad, because I love bell peppers so I am not sure if it “gets all over” when it is not cooked.
Well, all of this leads up to two things; an amazing friend and what is in the inside.
First of all, I have an amazing friend who GREW bell peppers for me. She had read my post about different colored bell peppers and my mention of purple ones so when she was planting her garden she planted some purple bell peppers for me. When she told me she had some purple bell peppers for me my first thought was, “Oh, how nice! How could she give them away?” See? That is how much I love bell peppers, I wouldn’t think of giving them away. Then she told me she planted and grew them for me. I thought that was the nicest thing. Then after she gave them to me we were talking and she reminded me that she HATES bell peppers. ALL colors! No matter what. She thinks they all taste the same. I had forgotten, which is really probably just a mental block because she is such a vegetable lover and I love them so much, I forget that people don’t like them. So the fact that she HATES them (REALLY REALLY) made her planting them and growing them for me even more special to me.
Now, there are some funny things about these bell peppers. First of all they are very small. The idea was that they were purple so they are ready. I am not a gardener so I don’t know, except from what I have read bell peppers are ready when they get to the color you have planted. So it was decided that these were purple so they are ready. They are soooo cute!
The second thing is they are GREEN inside. That was a surprise to me. I had seen purple bell peppers before, in the store, but I had never actually had them, so the GREEN was a surprise. I cut it open while I was on the phone with the gardener that grew them and our first thought was that there were not ready because they were green inside, but a quick Google search revealed that the purple ones are green inside. Funny. All the other bell peppers are the same color all the way through, except the purples ones. I wonder why that is.
There you have it, an amazing friend and an amazing (well to me) bell pepper.
So now tell me? Bell pepper lover or hater? Which color do you prefer? Did you know that the purple ones were green on the inside? Since I can’t tell, does a raw bell pepper permeate a raw dish with its bell pepper flavor? Tell me, I really want to know!
One of my favorite workouts DVD besides my Nia routines is a ten minute one. It might be considered an old one as it is from 2004, but I love it. They always sell these things as a “Don’t have time to exercise” type of thing, but doing only a ten minute workout all the time won’t get you far. As I have said before when I was sharing my little ten minute workout in June, it is good when that is all you have time for but only every once in a while, honestly more is needed to reach fitness and health goals. This DVD, done by Lara Hudson, has five ten minute workouts on it. It has capability built into the DVD that allows you to play one workout or pick more than one to make a longer workout and they will play right in a row. You don’t have to start one, do it, then manually start another. When you set up the workout you pick the order you want them to play in. You can even pick one workout twice so you can do it two times.
The five workouts are an ab workout, a buns and thighs workout, an arm workout, a cardio workout, and a flexibility workout. There are about 10 exercises per workout — even with the leg workout. The number of times you do each exercise varies from 4 to 12.
I’ve actually only done the cardio workout once or twice because I prefer to do Nia or Turbo Jam as my cardio. I also like to do more than 10 minutes of cardio, but it could be that all of these together would work for you.
Lara has an easy way about her. The instruction is clear and easy to follow. Some times in her instructions she ends the word in a high tone and it never fails to make me laugh. She is pleasant to work out to. She also is very good at reminding you throughout the video to concentrate on each movement. She often says, “Controoool.” in a way that encourages you to keep the movement controlled. Precision is another key to Pilates and she does a good job getting you to remember that, too.
In the ab workout there are various sit-ups and leg lifts. There are roll ups and roll overs. Lara is very clear with her instruction regarding breathing, which is very helpful. This workout is done lying down.
The leg workout is done on the floor also. It contains the usual leg lifts and bridges, and maybe some other exercises that are not so usual. This workout has you do a set of exercises for one leg, then switch to the other leg. Then there is another set you do for each leg. Even though the workout is only ten minutes the pacing is nice and you really are able to get through about 10 different exercises.
They call the arm workout “Sculpting Pilates”. It is bicep curls and triceps extensions. There is shoulder and back work in there too. There might be some exercises in each workout that are new to you, but nothing to drastic. For this workout the basic stance is the Pilates V, heels together with the feet forming a V. At times we separate the feet, but most of it is done standing in the V.
The cardio portion of this DVD is a series of planks, push ups, curls, dipping lunges, leg lifts, swimmers, and mermaids. As with all of the workouts the flow is nice and Lara keeps you moving reasonable pace. Also, as with all the workouts, she gets a stretch in there. It isn’t a long stretch but just enough to help you “reset” if you need to.
The flexibility one consists of the cat and the cow, and other stretches that really get pretty much every part of your body — all in ten minutes.
I think this is a GREAT little Pilates workout DVD. It could even be a nice way to start to doing Pilates. If you have never done Pilates this could give you an idea of what to expect if you were to go to a class. It could help you learn a bit of the concentration and breathing. I really like this DVD. I feel it is a great addition to any workout program. It allows you to do from 10 minutes to 50 minutes in the order you want.
Our cat is an indoor cat. She does not go outside. I honestly feel that cats should be able to go outside. There are so many fun things for cats to experience; butterflies, grass, fences, frogs, lizards, flowers, etc. They do belong outside, able to roam, but unfortunately there are also many dangers. In addition to believing that cats really should be allowed to go outside, I feel that people must take responsibility for their pet(s) and that can come with a heavy price tag. Neither my heart nor my wallet could afford having to fix my cat if one of those outside dangers were to injure her. In our neighborhood we have raccoons, opossums, dogs, cats, cars, and sometimes the worst danger of all . . . other people. Not everyone is an animal lover or they might not enjoy a kitty fertilizing their garden — understandable. So we keep our cat inside. She, like a lot of indoor animals, LOVES to sit by any open door or window. She can sit there for hours. She stares and sniffs, and sniffs and stares. She will often go from door to door as if patrolling her yard. My hubby and I feed birds and squirrels in our yard in hopes that they will serve as entertainment for the cat. We have learned that we are overly entertained by our yard animals too. As I have posted before, the animals often distract me when I am doing a Nia routine or working out.
My hubby and I also have animal protocol, if there is an animal in the yard and we are on our way out to the yard, we stop and wait for it to settle or be gone. If we are in the yard and one comes in we freeze and let it do what it is there to do then we proceed. We often will stop what we are doing (pause a DVD, pause our conversation, etc.) to watch the various critters that come to visit. They are very entertaining. They eat, they play, they drink, they take baths. It is all very fun to watch. They can be quite silly.
We used to have blue jays come with their babies every year. They must have nested in our neighbor’s yard, because one year he drastically trimmed the trees and the babies that visit now are not nearly as young as the ones we used to have. So I believe the birds are having their babies elsewhere and sometimes they come here to eat or bath, but they are not here over a period of months as they once were. It is interesting and very amusing watching “babies” learn new things.
I believe the video included in this post is a group of “baby” hummingbirds. They are either babies or they are adults new to our yard and they have not seen the “house” that we allow our cat to go outside in. The hummingbirds swarm around the house to see what exactly is the threat of the animal inside. It is quite entertaining. They did this just a few times and have since learned that she is no threat and they act as if she is not there. The squirrels often check her out though. They climb on the table and peer in at her. She just looks back at them, rarely does she rush at them. She knows she can’t get them, but I don’t think they are always so sure.
On this video you can hear the birds making their little chitter noise. I imagine them saying, “What is it doing? What is it? Can it eat us?”
It is especially funny since I just happened upon the purple puppy and her pink sister and I thought it was so oddly cute that I decided to post about it Makes me laugh that other people are curious about purple puppies. Makes me wonder why people are curious about purple puppies.
Terre Pruitt's Blog 